In the wake of Houston Dynamo midfielder Colin Clark's suspension from Major League Soccer for using a homophobic slur on the field, it is clear that professional sports teams are beginning to take lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) equality and allyship seriously. Homophobia that would have passed as an unfortunate part of athletic culture a few years ago is now being treated with the weight and severity it warrants. Though Clark's suspension is meaningful, such penalties can only advance our athletic culture so far.
As an athlete and coach, I have seen, with rare exception, that maximizing positive outcomes means balancing punishment with empowerment, and systems to discourage with systems to encourage. While suspensions and fines help to define what type of conduct is expected of professional athletes, they do little to change the overarching narrative that sport snubs LGBT coaches, athletes, and fans. Furthermore, because these penalties occur as isolated incidences without a structure or system for understanding them in relation to one another, their effect on LGBT empowerment is limited. In turn, professional sports need a multidimensional model for assessing, amplifying, and institutionalizing LGBT allyship in a way that celebrates progress as much as it discourages prejudice.
The Human Rights Campaign figured this out 10 years ago in the business world, when they implemented the Corporate Equality Index (CEI). What began with only 13 participating companies has launched into an equality arms race, with 10 of the top 20 Fortune-500 companiesnow receiving perfect marks. Today, high-scoring companies even brand themselves by their CEI scores, showcasing the HRC logo on website homepages. These companies care how their clients, customers, and employees perceive them on LGBT inclusivity and equality and are willing to make policy and procedural improvements based on those perceptions.
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